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Reindeermarks

John McCain has picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential nominee. When introduced by McCain as his nominee she said:

“I’ve championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we’d build it ourselves.”

Fascinating.

As mayor of Wasilla she feasted at the trough of earmarks, bringing her small village of Wasilla $11.9 million in earmarks from 2000 to 2003. But it gets worse.

The LATimes reported that this year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. “The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship,” she wrote in a newspaper column.

The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California reported in May that in the fiscal year that runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, Congress mandated more than 12,000 earmarks for projects costing more than $18 billion. Of that total, California lawmakers brought home $929 million. With about 12 percent of the nation’s population, California is getting about 5 percent of the earmark spending.

By comparison, under Palin’s “Leadership” Alaska will receive about $197 million in earmark funding. With a population of 0.25% of the United States, Alaska will receive just under 1.1% of earmark spending.

But wait, there’s more…

The LATimes reported that due to the explosion of the price of oil estimates of the budget surplus in Alaska by early next year range from $5 billion to $9 billion, a huge amount in a state of 670,000 people.

So all this talk about Sarah Palin being a reformer, of her opposing reindeermarks, is really nothing more than B.S… Or should we just call it Reindeer Droppings?Â Â